136 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



is most perfect where fine, compact, rich soil is found. If 

 one or more of these factors are wanting, nature requires 

 that a second or third rate plant be grown ; but the farmer 

 can only afford to raise the highest class of plants. How 

 nicely nature selects and adapts herself to the prevailing 

 conditions : the cat-tail for the marsh, the oak for the hill- 

 side, the mullein and daisy for the old worn-out sheep 

 pasture ! All these hints should lead us to study more 

 closely nature's modes of action ; having learned these, we 

 are to make them more useful and more effective, by remov- 

 ing or arresting antagonistic forces, in order that the 

 operation of the law may expend its full energy in produc- 

 ing the most useful results. 



We hurl maledictions at the poor cows, which constitute 

 more than one-half of the whole number ; this is all wrong, 

 for they are just as good as they can be ; the leopard cannot 

 change its spots, nor the dairy cow its udder. Man, who 

 was given dominion over every living thing, must make the 

 changes, if they are made. All plants and animals are 

 simply the living registers of the average knowledge and 

 skill of those who have propagated them. Nothing can 

 grow better without improving the conditions under which 

 it exists. If better animals are purchased with which to 

 improve the poorer, and the conditions of the offspring are 

 not made better than were the conditions of the poorer 

 variety, they will take the first opportunity to adjust them- 

 selves to their environment ; or, in other words, they will 

 sink to the level of their poorer ancestors, and the grade 

 will become a " scrub." Just here is found the cause of so 

 many failures. The attempt is made to breed better animals 

 according to the law of the poorer ones. Our best animals 

 are the progeny of those which served in a very imperfect 

 manner the wants of civilized man ; they were made better 

 by food, comfort and habit. If the dairyman feeds his cows 

 on timothy hay and a small quantity of dry old grain, 

 limits their drink, and exercises them vigorously for two 

 or three hours per day, in a few generations he can have 

 cows, steers and heifers which at short distance will rival 

 the speed of well-bred horses. Is it wise to conduct the 

 dairy according to the laws of the trotting stable ? Suppose 



